In July, a lawsuit was filed against various US government agencies that alleges they are blocking legitimate medical marijuana research. The lawsuit was filed by Lyle Craker, director of the Medicinal Plant Program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. The lawsuit takes aim at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
NIDA has long held a monopoly on who receives US government grown pot for research purposes and who does not, which allows NIDA to shut down pro med-pot research and patronize studies into pot's alleged harms.

Also in July, the European Union's Horizontal Working Party on Drugs asked the European Parliament to pass a resolution to fund massive anti-pot research.

Unfortunately, while anti-drug zealots pursue the patronage of bad science, one of the cannabis movement's leading medical doctors, Dr Franjo Grotenhermen, has been forced to withdraw from activism due to a rare illness. Grotenhermen was the driving force behind the extremely informative bulletin of the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine (IACM), which regularly detailed new research and supplied news for this column. In the press, Grotenhermen persistently refuted poorly conceived anti-pot studies.

Grotenhermen's health insurance will not cover the cost of the much needed and extremely expensive treatments required to alleviate his condition and so the IACM is asking for help in raising funds. Cannabis Culture encourages our readers to donate because it is only with people like Grotenhermen that humankind can hope to evolve toward a more rational medical dialogue on cannabis.